Below you will find a list of hotfixes recently implemented in our Friends & Family Betathat address various bugs and mechanic tweaks. These have been implemented to encourage experimenting with other items, skills, or mechanics while we revisit them for the next patch.

These hotfixes should not require you to download a new patch for the Friends & Family Beta. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented while others may require a restart of the game to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch. Also note that changes to certain abilities will not be reflected in its tooltip until a patch is issued.

Adventure Mode

Completing individual bounties will no longer reward a Horadric Cache.

Completing all five Bounties in an Act now also provides Blood Shards.

Completing a Nephalem Rift now also rewards a Greater Horadric Cache.

The XP and Gold rewards from completing Bounties have been reduced; the new values at level 70 are 85,000 XP and 11,800 gold.

Items

The following immunity Rings will no longer drop and have had their unique power disabled. Please note that immunity powers will be revisited in a later patch.

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac

The Tall Man's Finger

Wyrdward

Rogar's Huge Stone

Rechel's Ring of Larceny

Solanium will now produce Health Globes on Crushing Blow less frequently.

Pride of Cassius has had its unique power disabled. Please note that this item's power will be revisited in a later patch.

Removing and re-socketing a Helm or Sword with a Diamond gem no longer continuously increases the CDR and Elite Damage bonus

ClassesCrusader

Active Skills

Heaven's Fury

Bug: Now properly deals 1500% weapon damage over 5 seconds.

Wizard

Active Skills

Shock Pulse

Skill Rune - Living Lightning

Proc coefficient has been lowered from 0.2 to 0.042.

Passive Skills

Dominance

Duration increase amount reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds per stack.

Shield amount reduced from 27,323 to 16,394 (at level 70).

Paralysis

Stun chance reduced from 20% to 15%.

Bug: Fixed an issue where Electrocute was generating too many procs from Paralysis.

Comments

It's good for the game if Bounties are just rewarding enough to be worth doing, and no more. If the Bounty reward is too much then killing monsters feels bad in comparison - you're encouraged to do the absolute minimum completion goal of each Bounty and then get out of there as fast as possible to speedrun the next one. Bounties are ultimately just an excuse to get people into new zones doing new things, there's no need for them to be the primary source of all exp and loot.

No one does quests just for the gold/exp rewards, it's the same thing really. It's pointless. And I'm struggling to see who needs 100k gold per bounty if you're smart and have saved up billions of gold already.

STOP complaining, its a BETA, they are doing what they think its ncessary to balance the game, would you rather if they did internal beta and we never knew the numbers ? It was OBIVOUSLY OP (bounty rewards, rings and Rape Beam)...

So, I guess I have to be the first person to point out this particular line from the blue post above?

These have been implemented to encourage experimenting with other items, skills, or mechanics while we revisit them for the next patch.

In other words, gentlemen and ladies...much like everything else going on the beta testing...these things aren't final. In another thread, it was even confirmed by another CM that drop rates are particularly high JUST to give the testers access to more of the new legendaries to test out.

Thus...many of these things can and SHOULD change before it finally goes live and the testing finishes....

For instance, the Horadric Caches. That should absolutely go back in. Even if what each one drops is reduced, or fine tuned to be certain things and not others. Granted, I realize each Bounty was giving out gigantic rewards, like the quotes said, to give the testers more access to better items to test, but Bounties should be a rewarding thing item-wise.

Related note, the XP and gold rewards of Bounties. Unless they give us some idea of what crafting costs will be finally, we may not know if 11k gold is good enough for each one, or if it's not enough. Hopefully they plan on bringing the XP reward back up, though. The amount of Paragon XP to get from level 199 to 200, for example, is almost 300 million XP, at least in the chart see on this site. Even if the XP reward for a Bounty is 300k XP, that's about a thousand Bounties alone to get that one level. Which I imagine could go fast, but if it's reduced to 80-something-k, it'd take twice as long.

Thing is, I'm not worried about it. Given many of the changes coming, I have a lot more confidence in what they're working on. They know just how crucial this expansion/update is. They know how important it is to get it right...part of the reason they're letting us in on the process.

Imagine that, items that make your character immune to monster damage were overpowered and made the game trivial.

And actually, no. The thing with those rings is that they may mitigate ONE type of damage, but they often leave out things like All Res, which can mitigate ALL damage. The Wyrdward pictured in the news section...Strength, Vitality, Crushing Blow, Cooldown Reduction, +XP, and Fire Immunity...no All Res. The Tall Man's Finger...Black Damage, Dex, Life Per Hit, Crowd Control Reduction, Cold Immunity...no All Res. You could equip BOTH of those, and you know what? You get a Thunderstorm Plagued elite pack? You're pretty screwed.

That's the idea behind those rings. You find one of those rings with the right mainstat, with some extra damage stats, and the one element protection that fumbles you the most? It'd be perfect. But if you have on two rings with All Res, you may take damage, but you're reducing it from all sources. Choosing one of these immunities isn't OP. Hell, choosing TWO isn't even OP. The amount of All Res you're sacrificing, especially with Loot 2.0 numbers, is pretty significant.

All in all, it's a tradeoff. I have NO problem with items THAT powerful being in the game...maybe they should just be really hard to get. Drop from only some extremely rare monsters that are buffed considerably in the power department so they're not easy to kill. But I really don't think things of that particular nature make the game trivial.

I have a bad feeling whenever proc coefficients get nerfed. Players just look for the next best thing to trigger whatever they're looking to triggering. Then that might get nerfed. And the next. Then the next. There has to be a better way to curb some of the overplayed tactics. But this cycle (or potential cycle) has to stop first.

I don't know much about proc coefficients, but am I wrong to think .2 is a bit high? I remember reading some of the proc coefficient nerfs a handful of patches ago, and I don't remember them being as high as .2. I mean, people thought lowering the procs on Wicked Wind would destroy the CM builds, but they hung around for a long time.

You do make a good point that nerfing things tends to be a habit of theirs, but I really feel like their philosophy is a bit different, to the point where they realize that it's okay to have a few things be in the game that are a teeny bit OP, but not over the top. I'm pretty sure they addressed Crushing Blow over in the official forums for that exact reason. They wanted to add something competitive with Crits, and CB is a great idea! They just have to implement in the right way in order for it to be good, but not game-breaking.

All in all, guys...relax. Some of this stuff will probably be back in another patch. They got great feedback (at least for a little while) over some of this stuff. They're just trying to tailor what gets tested, rather than keep everything in the game and have people ONLY test legendary drop rates (which were specifically boosted to be high), bugged skills (like the Crusader's beam), and the same legendary items as every other tester.

This is almost the problem with letting people see the innerworkings of their tests. Every little change becomes a crisis. Some of these worry me as well, I'd hate to see Horadric Caches be removed. But I really just think they want to tweak it and not kill it.

They are experimenting with the bounty/rift reward balance. It's a beta, and it's safe to say that the rewards for these will be changing a lot over time based on feedback and data collected from testers.

Giving a greater reward for a rift is a solid plan. Completing all 5 bounties still gives a big cache, and it wouldn't surprise me if the small caches made a return in a "less rewarding" state in a later patch.

It's good for the game if Bounties are just rewarding enough to be worth doing, and no more. If the Bounty reward is too much then killing monsters feels bad in comparison - you're encouraged to do the absolute minimum completion goal of each Bounty and then get out of there as fast as possible to speedrun the next one. Bounties are ultimately just an excuse to get people into new zones doing new things, there's no need for them to be the primary source of all exp and loot.

No one does quests just for the gold/exp rewards, it's the same thing really. It's pointless. And I'm struggling to see who needs 100k gold per bounty if you're smart and have saved up billions of gold already.

You still get a Greater Cache every 5 bounties, and Rift Keys I assume, which might be enough in and of itself. If they see that people are skipping Bounties then they'll buff it until that stops. There's no reason to be so cynical, Blizzard isn't going to let one of its flagship features go unused.

I think it's the community's and the streamer-s fault for the "OMG they nerfed the beam/Bounties suck now"- reactions. The community learn from the streamers that the way to play the game is to push it to the limit of efficiency. Proc coefficients wouldn't be such a hassle to balance if people weren't making exploity CM builds that nearly breaks the game.

Also, streamers contribute to the notion that the beta is a chance to play the game early. They think blizzard hands out beta keys and say "We like you so you have the privilage to play before everybody else!". IMO, streamers are not necessarely the best beta testers. I'd rather see people who already have contributet with tons of feedback to the game. I'd bet Kongor plays the beta for "dat twitch monaaay" and won't be handing in any valuable feedback.

I used to play a MMO called Tibia some years ago and I've participated in many test servers. They have a very good testing process.
Firstly the developers make the content and announce the content patch/update. For about a month or couple of weeks they let the "tutors" and highly ranked players (similar to MVP) test the content. When they test the content on the test server, they have allowed people to access the new items/features from the start so people can start testing right away.
For example: Are there new weapons or armour added to the game, you can get those items from a testing NPC for free so you can't start testing it.
And when they have had their time communicating with the devs, they let open up for the public test server.

All in all, I'd rather see valuable players (like MVPs) test the beta before streamers take it out to the public. They should also focusing more on demanding feedback from the beta testers and make it clear that the test realm is for testing.

All in all, I'd rather see valuable players (like MVPs) test the beta before streamers take it out to the public. They should also focusing more on demanding feedback from the beta testers and make it clear that the test realm is for testing.

I have to agree here. Mainly because I feel like I'm guilty of this to some extent. I'm not a streamer, but when D3 does a PTR round, I don't tend to submit any problems, I tend to just use it as a chance to preview.

I'd rather have them allow PTR access to people who might give really constructive criticisms, BUT when they do give that criticism, it's directly to CMs or devs in real time, like a chat channel or something along those lines.

And actually, no. The thing with those rings is that they may mitigate ONE type of damage, but they often leave out things like All Res, which can mitigate ALL damage. The Wyrdward pictured in the news section...Strength, Vitality, Crushing Blow, Cooldown Reduction, +XP, and Fire Immunity...no All Res. The Tall Man's Finger...Black Damage, Dex, Life Per Hit, Crowd Control Reduction, Cold Immunity...no All Res. You could equip BOTH of those, and you know what? You get a Thunderstorm Plagued elite pack? You're pretty screwed.

That's the idea behind those rings. You find one of those rings with the right mainstat, with some extra damage stats, and the one element protection that fumbles you the most? It'd be perfect. But if you have on two rings with All Res, you may take damage, but you're reducing it from all sources. Choosing one of these immunities isn't OP. Hell, choosing TWO isn't even OP. The amount of All Res you're sacrificing, especially with Loot 2.0 numbers, is pretty significant.

All in all, it's a tradeoff. I have NO problem with items THAT powerful being in the game...maybe they should just be really hard to get. Drop from only some extremely rare monsters that are buffed considerably in the power department so they're not easy to kill. But I really don't think things of that particular nature make the game trivial.

Removing theses rings was the right thing to do. You do realise you could swap to fire imunity ring when there was an annoying elite, and then swap to your dps ring for trash mobs, right? Blizzard hate item swapping, one of the reason they implemented paragon leves in the first place was to counter people swapping MF gear just before killing elite (which was boring and pretty much a chore to do). We're going in the right direction

Removing theses rings was the right thing to do. You do realise you could swap to fire imunity ring when there was an annoying elite, and then swap to your dps ring for trash mobs, right? Blizzard hate item swapping, one of the reason they implemented paragon leves in the first place was to counter people swapping MF gear just before killing elite (which was boring and pretty much a chore to do). We're going in the right direction

To answer your question...yes, I do realize that. And trust me, I was all for the Paragon/NV approach to get people away from swapping both MF gear and skills per battle. I'll grant you all that.

However, honestly...so many people in this game chase after DPS boosts like watching "bumblebee soccer." You ever see how little kids play soccer? They don't play zones, they don't play strategically, they just all chase the ball around because they think "having the ball" is the only way to play. Same as the people who only care about DPS. Sure, they could get a whole set of immunity rings, but unless they get some level of "trifecta" roll on all those rings, they stand to lose a TON of damage in a swap. Think about how much higher affix rolls will be in Loot 2.0 and the expansion. That could be a significant damage drop.

Then, think about efficiency. Sure, equipping an immunity ring would get them a lot of survivability during a swap...but their efficiency may grind to a friggin halt if they're typically farming on high enough difficulty levels. And for one elite pack/monster? Would that really be worth it?

Not to mention, if they're already wearing a legendary in that slot! That could be disastrous. What happens if the legendary effect they lose in a swap, kills their build? That's kinda the nice thing about legendaries having these powerful effects. It's not just meant to give us cooler stuff to find from drops, it's also to get people thinking harder about what effects they want, and to make harder decisions on what makes their build work the way THEY want it to, AND the most efficiently. Some builds will HANG on them as a foundation. Unless you're using a build that's versatile enough to simply drop a single powerful legendary effect temporarily? Swapping won't happen nearly as much as you think because of that.

I guess one possible tactic people could use would be to reserve one ring slot for a Rare ring. That way, they may lose damage or extra stats, but their build doesn't change wildly. Still doesn't change the fact that the damage drop may not be tempting enough to swap, even momentarily.

I mean, what would be the other option if they want to get around the damage drop? They swap only when the fire damage puts them in danger, they swap the ring on, heal, then swap the ring out, then they get into danger, swap the ring back on...really seems like a clunky process to me.

You raise a good point about swapping, not one I hadn't thought of, but...I really doubt this would be much of an issue.